There are some developers that can’t help but complicate their games with complex lore. While some games have stories that can be understood simply by playing through the series, like Yakuza, others need deep dives into items and characters to really get a handle on what’s going on.
That said, if you’re a fan of thse games then there’s a lot of extra information that you’ll likely enjoy lapping up. Here are some to get you started.
Five Nights At Freddy’s Still Doesn’t Have a Clear Storyline
The story behind Five Nights at Freddy’s is famously complicated. Fazbear Entertainment appears harmless on the surface, making mascot costumes and running family-friendly restaurants. But from the very beginning, animatronics start malfunctioning, leading to a catastrophic fire. This early disaster starts a series of tragedies and secrets that the company tries to hide. William Afton, an owner, grows obsessed with human suffering and emotion.
He builds a secret underground facility meant to trap children, conducting horrifying experiments. The death of his daughter, Elizabeth, along with the disappearances of other kids, adds even more layers of horror. The whole franchise exists in a strange paradox where multiple interpretations can somehow feel both right and wrong at the same time. The “true” lore has never been verified, but you could spend hours dissecting this series and not understand everything.
The story of Metal Gear Solid is famous for being incredibly complicated, with a plot built up over many games and years. The story starts during the Cold War, with the events of Snake Eater, where you are dropped into a mission full of spies and the threat of nuclear war. As you move forward in the timeline, you get caught up in a messy network of family ties, genetic experiments, and political schemes.
The influence of Big Boss is everywhere, and you have to figure out the motives of his clones and how they all play a part in changing the world. The series also makes things harder by using unreliable narrators. Important characters often have secret plans or tell different versions of the same events, forcing you to figure out the truth from small pieces of information. It’s still a great story, despite the confusion. It’s a series that will be hard to continue without Kojima, just because of the lore.
Understanding Elden Ring’s Storyline Requires a Few Playthroughs
The lore of Elden Ring is not told in a simple, direct way. Instead, it is revealed through descriptions of items, clues in the environment, and mysterious conversations with characters. Players must gather and connect these scattered pieces to form a complete picture of what is happening.
This broken-up way of telling the story adds many layers of difficulty. The story begins with the Shattering, a massive war caused by Queen Marika’s demigod children fighting for control over the Great Runes, which are pieces of the broken Elden Ring.
You play as a Tarnished, an outcast who has lost divine favor, but you are called back to the Lands Between to repair the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord. Unfortunately, characters share their own version of events, often influenced by personal biases or secret plans. This makes it very hard to understand the story without comparing and contrasting.
There’s More to Death Stranding Than You Think
Death Stranding isn’t just a game that lets you take a passive role as a humble delivery person, but a game with a complicated storyline that can be hard to understand. It has many layers because of how Hideo Kojima tells its story. At first, the game seems to be about Sam Porter Bridges trying to bring a broken America back together after a huge disaster called the Death Stranding. However, you get caught up in a complicated world of chiral networks, beach connections, and strange creatures called BTs, all while exploring a lonely landscape filled with ruins of the past.
A lot of the story is explained through long cutscenes and big chunks of dialogue, often spoken by characters who might not be telling the whole truth. This makes it hard to know what is real and just theory. You spend most of the game putting together small pieces of information, trying to figure out what the Death Stranding really is and what forces are behind it.
The lore of The Elder Scrolls is so complicated because the series doesn’t give you one clear, straightforward version of history. Instead, you have to gather information from books in the game, conversations with characters, and ancient ruins. But these sources are frequently biased, missing details, or sometimes even meant to trick you. You can never be completely sure what’s real and what’s just lies.
You’ll quickly notice that major events are described differently depending on who’s telling the story and when they lived. The only part that is certain is the Dawn Era, a time of legends and creation, where many gods shaped the world, and what is seen in the main story of the games and anything else can be lies. Since everything is both true and not true at the same time, it can be really hard to find any solid facts to rely on.
The Fallout Lore Is More Intense Than Games Show
Despite having great radio stations, the lore of Fallout is a complicated mess, mainly because it covers so many years over such a broad timeline. The time before the war is already a detailed and intricate setting. There were plenty of fights for control between huge corporations and governments. The world after the apocalypse is made even more confusing by factions that keep reappearing but with changing goals.
You deal with the unclear morals of groups like the Brotherhood of Steel, the NCR, and the Enclave, realizing that their reasons for acting are rarely simple or clear-cut. Each game brings in new factions and locations, building on what already exists in the story. This can create contradictions and different versions of the same historical events, depending on which side you support and what information you have at the time.
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Dark Souls‘ Story Is Told Through Items and the Environment
Dark Souls presents a world trapped in endless cycles, a complicated pattern of eras that begin and end with the rise and fall of the First Flame. The central idea of “linking the flame” is supposed to hold everything together, but even though it sounds straightforward, you soon realize it sets off a chain of events that are difficult to track and even harder to fully grasp.
Nothing in this world should be accepted as it first appears; everything must be examined from multiple angles to uncover the real story or at least get a little closer to it. Kingdoms also play a key role in this tangled lore. Figures like Gwyn, the Witch of Izalith, and Gravelord Nito are more than just names; they are key players in a grand story motivated by ambition, fear, and the constant threat of the dying flame.
Kingdom Hearts Goes Overboard With Its Storyline
The Kingdom Hearts story is hard to follow because the series includes many games released on different consoles, which take place in different periods. To fully understand the bigger story, you have to play every single game, but putting the events in order is tough because the games rarely tell their stories in a straight, easy-to-follow way. The story starts long before Sora, Donald, and Goofy begin their journey. You first learn about the ancient Keyblade fighters who were trained by the Master of Masters, how they split into groups called the Foretellers, and how they predicted a great war was coming.
Birth by Sleep introduces Aqua, Terra, and Ventus, who get caught up in Xehanort’s plans and end up separated in different worlds. Their stories are tied to Sora’s fate. There’s just so much to take in, and the series keeps adding new ideas and characters while also bringing back old ones. The crossover aspects of the game are great and make the lore very deep but also very complicated
Resident Evil Is More Complicated Than You Think
Leon and Ada entering the Gun Store in Resident Evil 2 (2019)
The story of Resident Evil is mostly straightforward in its timeline, but it gets its reputation for being complicated because of the many overlapping conspiracies, virus outbreaks, and ever-changing bioweapons. The story documents the Umbrella Corporation’s rise and fall, their hidden labs, and the terrible results of their experiments, like the T-virus outbreak. At one moment, you’re fighting alone against zombies. The next, you’re caught up in grand plans for global control and genetically engineered superhumans.
Important characters like Wesker, Birkin, and Spencer have messy relationships, constantly changing goals, and secret plans, which only adds to the confusion. As you go deeper, characters come back from the dead, get cloned, or become infected, making it hard to tell who’s truly alive, dead, or something else entirely. You’re constantly introduced to new viruses, bioweapons, and rival groups, each making the already complex story even harder to follow. As you try to make sense of it all, you’ll have to sort through betrayals, alliances that don’t last, and confusing motives.
Though the games on this list stand out for their high quality, complex doesn’t always mean good. Check out some of the best games with memorable stories that will stick with you if you’re swayed by a good narrative.